Oct 18,2007 00:00 by
UPI TAIPEI, Taiwan -- Both candidates next March's Taiwan presidential election appear receptive to an overture from China, but the current president is not.

Chinese President Hu Jintao suggested Monday that Taiwan and the mainland should sign a peace treaty ending hostilities stretching back to 1949, but negotiations could only take place under the one China policy.

“It is very clear now that if we were to sign such a peace treaty under the framework of the ‘one China’ principle, then I think this would mean, for the 23 million people of Taiwan, a treaty of surrender,” Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian told The New York Times.

However, front-runner Ma Ying-jeou, the candidate of the opposition Nationalist Party, or Kuomintang, and Frank Hsieh, the candidate of Chen's Democratic Progressive Party, indicated they were open to the initiative.